The Long Tail And The Big Head

Ammon Johns

Two huge sea-changes in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) have become obvious over the past two years. One of them is the buzzword of the last couple of years - the Long Tail of search. Like many things, its a bright new word for an old concept - niche marketing. However, just because everyone is talking about it does not mean that everyone understands it.

The second of those big changes is far less trumpeted, less buzz-laden, but is part of the same process of evolution and maturing in the field of SEM. The second big change is in teaching SEO and Internet Marketing. Companies that once focused solely on selling you some fish are now devoting serious resources and attention to selling you lessons in fishing.

This in itself, like niche marketing, is a prime example of marketing - produce what you can sell.

Some of the most dedicated readers might remember that I mentioned the early indication of this shift in focus over a year ago. That was back when we at Fresh Egg were skipping ahead to offer a very different form of training course - the SEO Internship Training program.

The trend has continued, and now it seems that almost all reputable companies with anything to teach at least offer some form of client training, if not running seminars and courses for a wider audience. Here at Fresh Egg we've begun a new wave of workshops for clients, kicking off with our "Blogging for Business" workshop event in Brighton.

Next month I am off to Edinburgh to give a presentation and interact with attendee's at Jim Boykin's SEO Class. I am looking forward to that, as I have always enjoyed the educational side of SEO.

Anyway, back to the underlying point...

The common theme here is that SEO is becoming truly holistic. The modern SEM campaign is all about bringing lots of small factors together. It is like a micro-payment system for the effort of SEO. Sharing the work among more people in an organization. Combining the efforts of the clients, the SEO agency, and perhaps even some specialist outsourcing.

Its the long tail from both ends. That lots of small things can combined make much more than the biggest things. Watch the trend, because it has only just started.